Non-selective foliage application type herbicidally active compounds such as glyphosate kill or control many species of weeds non-selectively, and hence have been used in non-agricultural land such as railways, created land, parking lots, parks and house circumferences. Furthermore, because said herbicidally active compounds falling on soil surface lose their herbicidal activity against plants after they are adsorbed in the soil and exhibit no phytotoxicity for useful plants, they are widely used also in agricultural land such as orchard, vegetable gardens and paddy fields before ploughing. Conventionally, for uniformly applying such a non-selective foliage application type herbicidal compound as glyphosate to allow exhibition of its maximum effect, generally such a non-selective foliage application type herbicidally active compound is formulated into such preparation forms as liquid, water soluble granule, flowable, wettable powder and the like, and a method of diluting said preparation forms with water is adopted.
These preparations, however, are difficult for use where water facilities are bad because they are used as diluted with water. Moreover, for spraying these preparations, suitable devices such as a sprayer is indispensable. Besides such problems, their application with a sprayer scatters fine spray particles which are apt to be drifted with wind. Therefore, their spray in the vicinities of useful plants or to the areas close to plant bases is liable to cause phytotoxicity, and is normally avoided.
On the other hand, recently water soluble granule or water dispersible granule preparations are developed in consideration of the problems incidental to disposal of containers and toxicity of solvents used in emulsifiable concentrate, and also for such reasons as their better flowability and easier measurement compared with water soluble powder or wettable powder preparations. Furthermore, they do not cause dust scattering in the occasions of preparing spraying liquids therefrom, exhibiting improved safety for the workers. As water soluble granule or water dispersible granule preparations containing glyphosate as herbicidally active ingredient, for example, water dispersible granule preparations comprising glyphosate and polyglycolether nonionic surfactant having a wax viscosity [JP Hei 6 (1994)-256121A] or water soluble granule preparations comprising glyphosate, a surfactant and polyalkylene glycol as an extrusion granulating assistant [JP Hei 11 (1999)-255609A] have been proposed. These water soluble granule or water dispersible granule preparations, however, are invariably to be diluted with water before application, like liquid, emulsifiable concentrate or flowable preparations and the problems as above-described still remain unsolved.